The Hilarious House Of Frightenstein

Every purchase you make through these Amazon links supports DVD Verdict's reviewing efforts. Thank you!

All Rise...

Canadian Judge Paul Corupe won't let you forget that this show was Canadian, eh.

The Charge

"Another lovely day begins, For ghosts and ghouls with greenish
skin So close your eyes and you will find That you've arrived in
Frightenstein! Perhaps the Count will find a way To make his monster
work today, For if he solves this monster-mania, He can return to
Transylvania! So welcome to where the sun don't shine, To the castle
of Count Frightenstein!"—The Narrator (Vincent Price)

Opening Statement

Saturday morning TV was always special to me as a kid, especially if I could
get myself up by six a.m. to catch reruns of the incredibly outlandish Canadian
kid's show The Hilarious House of Frightenstein. A locally-produced
series from the early 1970s starring homegrown comedian Billy Van as a variety
of monsters, eccentrics and craggily-faced weirdoes, it was, even to my young
eyes, one of the most bizarre things I'd ever seen; an hour-long
Laugh-In-styled horror host series with distinctly unfulfilled pretenses
towards educational programming. Like all good things, it soon
disappeared—or perhaps I just couldn't get up early enough
anymore—becoming strictly a hazy memory and a favorite, "hey, do you
remember that show" topic around the water cooler for a generation of
Canadians. A brief stint on cable TV a few years back and a few bootleg DVDs
have since appeared to fuel fan recollections, but Empire Pictures has done the
once unthinkable—collected several episodes of The Hilarious House of
Frightenstein on legitimate DVD for the first time ever.

Facts of the Case

From the dank depths of his gothic castle, Count Frightenstein (Billy Van,
The Sonny and Cher Show) and his assistant Igor (Fishka Rais, Cannibal Girls) attempt to breathe life to
their corpse-composed monster Brucie. While they attempt to raise their creation
once more, we're visited by the castle's denizens, The Professor (Julius Sumner
Miller, The Mickey Mouse Club), The Oracle (Van), The Librarian (Van),
Grizelda The Ghastly Gourmet (Van again), The Wolfman (still Van), Bwanna Clyde
Batty (Van once more), and Dr. Pet Vet (yep, Van), all introduced by narrator
Vincent Price (The Tingler).

The Evidence

Let's get this out of the way first: The Hilarious House of
Frightenstein is not a particularly "good" show. Don't get me
wrong, I've watched this series almost my whole life and I love it dearly, but
not even I will tell you that it's well made, enlightening, or even particularly
funny. Those who grew up with it are bound to be disappointed with modern
viewings, and those who have never seen it before will regard it as a trashy
waste of time. Regardless (or perhaps because of) its obvious shortcomings,
however, The Hilarious House of Frightenstein continues to garner an
impressive fan base as the most compelling example of Canadian cult TV ever
unleashed on the unsuspecting world.

What was so strange about the show was its aging hippie-meets-Famous
Monster of Filmland comedy vibe. As the green-faced vampire Count
Frightenstein, Van was never actually scary like many horror hosts of the 1970s,
but focused more on corny gags and slapstick jokes more common to adult variety
shows of the time like Hee Haw and the aforementioned Laugh-In.
Each show invariably kicked off its descent into madcap monster fun with a
recitation of "Gory, Gory, Transylvania," the Count's national anthem,
and proceeded into some silly shtick with Igor before veering off into a variety
of segments starring each of Van's many character creations, each introduced by
guest star Vincent Price through a humorous limerick or poem.

There were many odd, incongruous aspects of the mostly impromptu program,
but perhaps the oddest were the ones that actually attempted to teach the
juvenile audience something. As Dr. Pet Vet, a heavily made-up Van would bring
out a dog, bird, or turtle for Igor to coo over, obviously reading some basic
facts about diet and habits from a cue card behind the camera. Likewise, Bwanna
Clyde Batty was a pith-helmeted explorer with a British accent fond of saying
"Ooga Booga" as he narrated dated jungle stock footage with more
encyclopedia gleanings. Speaking from experience, kids would usually mentally
tune this barely academic stuff out and wait for another segment of Grizelda The
Ghastly Gourmet, a cooking show parody that starred a wart-covered witch
throwing all kinds of bizarre ingredients into her cauldron and madly
cackling—one of Van's best performances that made for always entertaining
viewing.

Still, there's no escaping Van's hippie leanings, with peculiar Castle
Frightenstein additions like The Oracle, who would "educate" kids
about astrology as he accidentally smashed his crystal ball, and The Maharishi,
a Ravi Shankar-styled sitar player who would make jokingly profound comments
before having a truckload of flowers dumped on his head. For many (although not
me), the best segment of the show was the hirsute ECCH Radio DJ The Wolfman, a
spot-on take off on Wolfman Jack, who would spin classic 45s and dance with a
giant bat-shaped guitar against a psychedelic chroma key screen. These segments
are kept in tact on this release—I'd assumed that rights trouble would
have seen the music replaced with generic acid rock, but we have the actual
tracks here by Mungo Jerry, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, and Diana Ross.

Billy Van, who was making a name for himself with simultaneous gigs south of
the border on The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour, The Ray Stevens
Show, and The Bobby Vinton Show is simply incredible, performing more
than half a dozen quirky and uniquely horrific characters in his charmingly
frenzied style. When making the show, Van would record a day's worth of
completely improvised segments for a character, which would then be edited along
with the others into a show. He's always amusing (if not actually laugh-out-loud
funny), even when performing lesser characters like The Librarian, who would
simply read "scary" stories that turned out to be not scary at all,
often playing more to the crew than the intended viewers and making clever
asides that children wouldn't always pick up on. Even though these segments
always feel padded, you can't help but admire Van's energy and work ethic. The
addition of Vincent Price, who arrived for two days shooting and agreed to work
for scale, definitely gives the show some class, but Van simply was The
Hilarious House of Frightenstein, and without him, the show would not have
had half of its appeal.

The biggest concern with this DVD release is that these episodes presented
by Empire Pictures are not the original Canadian one-hour
presentations—instead, we get four truncated 30 minute American syndicated
versions, with an added children's laugh track. I'm kind of torn over this
decision, because on one hand, I'd like to have the shows presented as I
remember watching them as a tyke, but there's simply no denying that the one
hour versions really drag with far too much filler, and these shortened episodes
are much easier to digest. The canned laugh track isn't as offensive as I first
assumed, mostly kept low in the sound mix.

Unfortunately, the quality on this release is a little bit disappointing.
The show has never looked particularly good, and it's no different
here—colors are slightly washed out, the image is a little soft and
there's even some pixelation happening in dark areas of the screen. The mono
sound is OK, but you'll have to turn up your volume a bit to catch everything.
These episodes really could have benefited from a little spit 'n' polish, but
they're tolerable. The only extras are some text biographies.

Closing Statement

Since Billy Van's death in 2003, The Hilarious House of Frightenstein
has gained even more popularity, sparking a fan convention and public screenings
this past summer in Toronto, with devoted aficionados more than willing to turn
a blind eye to the show's faults. It's simply undeniable that the show rarely
achieves its potential, but that's certainly not through lack of
trying—it's more a prisoner of a demanding and barely practical production
schedule and format that any shortcoming of the people or talent involved. This
DVD is hard to recommend to anyone who is unfamiliar with Van's bizarrely
brilliant show, but I heartily enjoyed this release, and really hope that Empire
Pictures continues to release more volumes in the future.